Travelling TA: Day 13

What an amazing day! I didn't even mind getting up at 4.45am this morning. I mean, you don't mind do you? Not when you're off on safari. I now consider myself an expert, having safaried in 3 different parks, on 2 continents, on 7 different drives.

Our driver today was Elvis, and he has been guiding at Kruger for 25 years! He knows his shit, both literally and figuratively. Once again, we had the safari vehicle to ourselves, do were in the front row, seats we've had on every single one of pur safari adventures. We barrelled down the road for 5km and were first in the queue to get into the park. It was very cold; hat, thermal undies, thermal jumper, hoodie, boots, scarf kind of cold. Neither of us remembered gloves. It must have just slipped our minds as we were packing shorts and swim gear.

As soon as we were in the park we saw the elephants from our stretch of river yesterday, the mum, dad and two babies. Still pitch dark though, so no photos. Then we ran into a pair of lions, snoozing on the road. Got a few early sunrise photos there. Then white rhino, warthog (which I've decided are really rather cute. I've developed a bit of a soft spot).

Then, we got a tip about a cheetah and drove like a bat out of hell, convinced that racing a cheetah was just going to end in disappointment. But there they were. 3 cheetahs, standing close enough to get some amazing photos with the big zoom - the best money I've ever spent! Cheetahs are o beautiful, and lean and they have very long tails. Two started playing together. It was fabulous to see.

By 7am we'd seen 3 of the big 5 (rhino, lion and elephant, no buffalo or leopard yet) plus so many other animals. We even saw the interesting birds that Zazu from the Lion King is based on.

By 12, we'd seen buffalo too, though only through binoculars, velvet monkies sitting in trees, hippo, giraffe, loads more rhino and elephants, so many impala I can't count and zebra. There were some very pretty water bucks covered in little birds, who were eating the flies off them.

On our way out we stumbled across wild dogs, more lions and then a few feet down the road we were told there were 3 more lions. We didn't see them, but we did see a leopard stuck in a tree, not willing to come down due to the lions! Lions, cheetah and leopard all in one day, amazing! Seriously amazing considering Kruger is bigger than the whole country of Swaziland! The leopard made 6 of the big 7. Hyenas were the only thing we missed.

There were lots of people driving their own cars around, but I just can't see why you wouldn't go in a nice high up safari car, with an experienced driver/guide. It's worth every penny.

We needed a bath and a nap when we got back to the hotel, and now we're sitting on our sun loungers looking out over crocodile river, letting the sun warm our faces and seeing if we can spot anything in the river!